updated 11:45 am EST, Fri January 2, 2009

Safari use rises in Dec.

Minority browsers grew in popularity again during the month of December, according to tracking figures from Net Applications. Marketshare for Mozilla's Firefox reached 21.34 percent, up from 20.78 percent in November; Apple's Safari jumped from 7.13 to 7.93 percent, and Google's new, Windows-only Chrome browser shifted from 0.83 to 1.04 percent. This marks the first time the software has been over the 1 percent mark.

The trend comes at the expense of Opera -- which held on to a 0.71 percent figure -- and more significantly Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which slid from 69.77 to 68.15 percent. Despite its inclusion with Windows XP and Vista, the browser has been on a continuous decline since the beginning of 2008, when it controlled approximately 75 percent of the market. Net Applications notes, however, that December's drop was lower than the one experienced in November.

The group similarly cautions that browser use during December was unusually residential, which may have skewed statistics. Browsers like Firefox and Safari tend to be more popular at home than at work, figures are said to show.

Usage of Macs in browsing is meanwhile said to have risen as a whole during December, climbing from 8.87 to 9.63 percent. Windows usage fell from 89.62 to 88.68 percent, while Linux use held to 0.85 percent.

In addition to Macs getting close to 10% with an 8.6% rise in the last month, the iPhone/iPod Touch platform was at a combined 0.52% (0.44 for iPhone, 0.08 for iPod Touch), up from 0.42% (0.37 iP and 0.05 iT) in November with a 23.8% rise in one month. Not too shabby. Can't wait to see January's combined numbers, after all the Chistmas-gifted iTouches get factored in...

Safari is available to Windows users too. Those who prefer "anything but Internet Exploder" might see Safari as a viable option -- especially if they have an iPhone or iPod touch, or if their other computer is a Mac.